American Booksellers Association, Barnes & Noble to weigh in on Apple ebooks case

[gb18]

“Giving customers the widest choices at the fairest prices is at the heart of the agency model, and we believe this model should remain intact,”

BS!

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/gigaom/articles/2012_07_31_american_booksellers_association_barn...

[flyingtoastr Scribe]

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gb18 wrote:

“Giving customers the widest choices at the fairest prices is at the heart of the agency model, and we believe this model should remain intact,”

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Yeah, instead we should have Amazon dictate by fiat what the "fair" price for literature is and have everyone else who works in bookselling unemployed! Screw the economy, I just want everything cheap!

/s

[doncr]

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flyingtoastr wrote:

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gb18 wrote:

“Giving customers the widest choices at the fairest prices is at the heart of the agency model, and we believe this model should remain intact,”

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Yeah, instead we should have Amazon dictate by fiat what the "fair" price for literature is and have everyone else who works in bookselling unemployed! Screw the economy, I just want everything cheap!

/s

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Then why isn't the Agency model used for the sale of paper books?  Is allowing a retailer to set the price of a hardcover or paperback ruining the economy too?

Heck, why stop at eBooks?  If the Agency model will save jobs and boost our depressed economy, why not go to the Agency model for everything!  Squeeze a bit more out of every consumer so that a failing business can keep its doors open a bit longer.  Yeah, that's a winner. <rolls eyes>

[keriflur]

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doncr wrote:

Squeeze a bit more out of every consumer so that a failing business can keep its doors open a bit longer.  Yeah, that's a winner. <rolls eyes>

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What exactly do you think Amazon will do once they have a monopoly?  Give away the books for free? <rolls eyes>

Saying someone else shouldn't have a job because it doesn't please you?  Yeah, I guess that makes you a winner.

[flyingtoastr Scribe]

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doncr wrote:

Then why isn't the Agency model used for the sale of paper books?  Is allowing a retailer to set the price of a hardcover or paperback ruining the economy too?

Heck, why stop at eBooks?  If the Agency model will save jobs and boost our depressed economy, why not go to the Agency model for everything!  Squeeze a bit more out of every consumer so that a failing business can keep its doors open a bit longer.  Yeah, that's a winner. <rolls eyes>

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No one has come up with a satisfactory explanation as to why $10 is a "good" price for a new release book from a major author, other than "Jeff Bezos says so!".

Please, enlighten me.

[gb18]

This is a self-serving piece, but likely prophetic.  They are doing it to themselves.

"Significant Disruption For Traditional Publishers Still To Come"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/07/25/mark-coker-significant-disruption-for-trad...

[patgolfneb]

The real issue to me is what is fair competition? When each party in the process chooses to narrow a focus and only argues in it's own best interest the process fails. Specious arguments like why aren't paperbacks a or everything agency model are quips not reasons. Just like George Busch Sr. saying read my lips no new taxes, all intelligent thought ends. E books have basically one internet store with a number of stalls, sort of like a farmers market for books. If one stall has more resources he can bankrupt the others and make it back later. The barriers of customer travel, building stores ect. are reduced. E books especially are less perishable than most merchandise. New models, as in new books appear regularly. A suprising percentage of the sales come from relatively few books, Harry Potter for example. I know I am stating the obvious but if Amazon focuses on selling best sellers below cost, their past practice, seems unfair to me. I don't want to over pay either. Agency model troubles me also. To substitute quips for real thought and fail to seek balance and fairness guarantees no good solution will be found.

[doncr]

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gb18 wrote:

This is a self-serving piece, but likely prophetic.  They are doing it to themselves.

"Significant Disruption For Traditional Publishers Still To Come"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/07/25/mark-coker-significant-disruption-for-trad...

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The bit that I found interesting is that eBooks only account for 25 to 30 percent of total book sales in the United States.  

This makes me believe that the reason for advocating the Agency model isn't about eBooks at all.  It's to protect BN's margins to allow them to stay in business to continue to push their paper books in all of their retail stores.  

Why would an eBook customer who buys books online, want to pay higher prices in order to subsidize a bunch of retail stores which they never use?

[keriflur]

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doncr wrote:

Why would an eBook customer who buys books online, want to pay higher prices in order to subsidize a bunch of retail stores which they never use?

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The simple answer here is choice.  Retail stores are irrelevant to the customer who only shops online.  But if Amazon lowers the prices so much that B&N and Kobo can't compete, and Sony and Google choose not to compete, than there's only going to be one option, and ebook readers will have no choice.  At that point Amazon can charge whatever they want for books, because they'll have a monopoly.

I want options.  I want competition.  I don't want the publishers setting the prices.  BUT, I do believe, as Bezos has publicly said so, that Amazon intends to significantly drop the prices of ebooks as soon as it can.  That likely means they'll take losses to drive out competitors, and at the point it's not hard to guess what will happen.

It's possible that the DoJ settlement, and whatever comes out of the suit, will prevent Amazon from going back to it's anti-competitive practices, but the only way that will happen is if the DoJ truly believes that Amazon will behave anti-competitively.  IMO the ABA, B&N, and the Authors' Guild should get to have their say just as much as Amazon does.

[bklvr896]

Here's what I'm curious about. Why do some folks think the end of the agency model is going to benefit consumers? If it returns to te prior wholesale model, the retailer will buy the book for 50% of the retail cost of the hardcover which, on average, would be about $13. In order to cover costs and make a profit the books will have to be sold for more than the cost. I don't see where that is going to result in lower prices. Maybe I'm just missing something here.